April 2015 Travel: extraordinary to ordinary and back again?

Or Light Bulb Moment

LINK TO THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE IN EXPATRIATE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE CAN BE FOUND HERE

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Light Bulb Moment

I’ve never been skiing. I couldn’t see the attraction. All that money and the most unflattering clothes. Pointless. Luckily, the bloke topping up my glass at the BBQ was talking about sailing, and I’d been sailing. In the Greek Islands. Gorgeous scenery and uplifting exercise in the fresh air. My kind of holiday.

Long drive mind.

Not as long though, as the flight to The Caribbean that Christmas with the same bloke sitting next to me oblivious to how his invitation had forced me to re-categorise my fear of flying as a cost of doing business. At the time, I believed I’d been blinded to my aviophobia by the opportunity to go on such a fabulous sailing holiday with a bloke I quite liked. Now, since I understand more about how the brain learns, I’ve realised that my growth mindset was actually what empowered me to step out of my comfort zone and fly.

Would I have considered a job in KL if I’d not gone on that holiday? Who knows, what with butterfly wings and life’s many paths to the same place… it certainly changed me though. Knowing I could overcome any fear if I wanted to badly enough was undoubtedly a significant step on the road to the “light bulb moment” that I should retrain to become a teacher, and here we are in KL.

In the modern world, our brains typically only see predictable generic conformity, which means slower, shallower learning, and boredom. How exciting then, that travel is a proven way to counter this, and living in KL with it’s fantastic and affordable connectivity to so many different places, means that we, and our 22 (yes – twenty two!) visitors so far have been countering hard. In Malaysia itself we quickly learned that most of the manmade attractions wouldn’t look out of place on a wet night in Burnley and thus concentrated on the natural ones.

My husband, Trophy, our family’s official tour guide, goes to the monkeys, fireflies (synchronous), and fishing village at Kuala Selangor so often, he won’t eat fish and seafood in KL – it’s so much better there. FRIM is also a regular, as is visiting the Elephant Sanctuary on the way to/from Kuantan with its great beaches, turtles and fireflies (asynchronous). To us, brought up on David Attenborough and The Discovery Channel, these truely are Natural Wonders. Our biggest learning though, has been around the practical difficulties of conservation in an environment where many who live here consider them to be just ordinary, rather than part of an amazing heritage.

This clash of amazing and ordinary caught me on the ten minute walk from my hotel to a conference at the Bangkok Shangri-La. The recommended shortcut took me through a hole in a boarding fence and it felt like I’d stepped through a portal. I entered what looked and smelled like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie. There were people everywhere. And animals. Alive, dead, and soon to be dead.

“Fis fresh!”

“I can see, but thank you, no.”

“Prawn. Wan prawn?”

“Fis. Two ten baht. Goo pri.”

“Welcome to The Shangri La,Madam.”

Juxtaposition? No, ordinary. Others at the conference, looked blankly when I mentioned juxtaposition. This was Bangkok. Ordinary.

Extraordinary becomes ordinary very quickly when travelling, so much so that when Trophy, Skyping our friend Gary said he’d got nothing interesting to put in his blog, he was politely reminded that we’d just been to Angkor Wat, Tas, our “ten-ager”, was wakeboarding twice a week, and I was going to Shanghai for a maths competition. Ordinary here. Amazing in London.

Or like when Tas when asked what he wanted for breakfast after a sleepover back in London this Christmas, replied “curry” and was puzzled by his friends shocked reactions. We all know the brains amazing, but it’s still a surprise that not only does it love being exposed to new, unexpected, stimuli, learning faster and more deeply as a result, but it also bores so quickly that these new and exciting experiences soon become our norm!

How on earth then can we keep up this accelerated, amplified learning if our brains synthesise the unexpected into predictable so quickly? Well, its essential we keep conscious control, take nothing for granted and give ourselves credit for breaking out of our comfort zones. In addition we can help our brains organise our subconscious learnings by grounding them, this could be simply by editing the hundreds of photos we’ve taken into manageable albums or perhaps getting a recognised qualification like we did for our sailing in Phuket. Beats the English Channel I can tell you!

Finally, we must continue to search for new challenges, encourage others to help us and try to generate our own serendipity… like I’ve somehow agreed to accompanying Tas on the next school trip to Japan…skiing!

Comments On My Blog

Sues congratulations on another year full of inspiring observations and efforts. Your mushrooms are very lucky indeed. Keep on keeping on!...

A beautifully written piece and one that I can relate to. I particularly like the Mushroom field/farmer analogy. You clearly know how to motivate people to achieve success. Good on you!...

Great blog and great advice! Take some time out and make sure you have those holidays booked!!...

I really enjoyed the bit about Sir David Brailsfod....

Wow!Excellent!Did that take all summer to write?????...

Mushrooms - cover them in s*** and keep them in the dark???...

An inspiration to newbies! I totally agree with comments below and believe the leadership and culture advice applies across all disciplines....

Really interesting to non-educationalists too Sues (and love that Pat Lencioni gets a mention). I’ve got some interesting stuff on culture by Cameron and Quinn that I’ll share by email....

An interesting and reflective piece. I agree about the importance of "culture" and how long its roots are - very difficult to quantify but immensely influential on pretty much everything that happens ...

Thank you so much for posting such an informative blog. It has been helpful in updating my resume and cover letter for my Special Education job search abroad....

Hey! I loved the blog on recuritment. Hope you are well and enjoying your summer....

Thanks Carol! I think what we always have to remember to do is ask our kids for feedback. Ask them what they enjoyed, learned, preferred. And ask them what they would do differently next time to enj...

Interesting reflection, Susan. Always good to hear what you're thinking. Absolutely agree about the fact that kids are more similar than different - I see that every day too, in secondary - the challe...

Thanks Pete!...

Really enjoyed reading your blog. Very honest and insightful self reflection, always enjoyed listening to you speak. I'm sure you are making a positive impact on your new school. Look forward to rea...

As always thoroughly insightful, reflective and brutally honest. This is why I enjoyed so much working and learning with you. Glad to read that you are well! Take care Jose...

Thanks for your positive words Etienne. And don't sell yourself short, you have always been reflective in your practice! Susan...

Thank you for this Susan. Truly inspiring how you always put learning at the centre of everything you do. I wish to be half as reflective as you are. I will share this post with Katy, our new Assistan...

Thank you Christine!...

Thank you Sarah. So glad it resonated with you too....

Thanks Jus. I am so glad it resonated with you, but not surprised. We should talk about a guest blog from the parent view about how together, parents and schools can better support kids too?...

Dear Sues, This is a thought-provoking and inspiring read which I thoroughly enjoyed! The following part resonated with me: Our students get one shot in our care....We just can’t afford to ge...

Love it! Good on you for challenging yourself beyond expectation, for inspiring others, and never losing sight of why we wanted to teach in the first place....

Love it! ONE shot indeed and if not taken, we miss 100% of it. Looking forward to reading more about your journey, Susan - a written sounding board....

Love this and not just cos I'm in the picture! I do relate to Tobys comment - something about enduring the pain of hard work before the pleasure of success kicks in - or is that just me admitting maso...

Gary, I agree. I wonder perhaps, that many of the conversations around setting SMART targets are just not handled well. It is easy to present someone with a target, but where is the buy in? Commit...

Thanks Jane - I am already looking forward to the next chapter. Lots on the horizon!...

What about a future blog just focussed on compassionately ruthless in the meantime...

I am a learner... And I'm developing my ability to be compassionately ruthless! Great read....

What a learning journey and all in the space of two years. Enjoy the next chapter Susan - look forward to reading about it. Jane...